The brain must be inclined to "know" what facilitates a "life-preserving" transformation, and must enable the organism to participate in torture if it is perceived to enable the survival of others.
Nearly all thought reform environments are built on an urge and claim to save the world.
'It is impossible for “government” to ever be the servant, because of what “government” is. To put it in simple, personal terms, if someone can boss you around and take your money, he is not your servant; and if he cannot do those things he is not the “government.” However limited, “government” is the organization thought to have the right to forcibly control the behavior of its subjects via “laws,” rendering the popularly accepted rhetoric about “public servants” completely ridiculous. To imagine that a ruler could ever be the servant of those over whom he rules is patently absurd. Yet that impossibility is spouted as indisputable gospel in “civics” classes.. . .
Nearly everyone is taught that respect for the “law” is paramount for civilization, and that the good people are those who “play by the rules,” meaning they comply with the commands issued by “government.” But in reality, morality and obedience are often direct opposites. Unthinking adherence to any “authority” constitutes the greatest betrayal to humanity that there could possibly be, as it seeks to discard the free will and individual judgment that makes us human and makes us capable of morality, in favor of blind obedience, which reduces human beings to irresponsible robots. The belief in “authority” – the idea that the individual ever has an obligation to ignore his own judgment and decision-making process in favor of obeying someone else – is not just a bad idea; it is self-contradictory and absurd.
To be blunt, the belief in “authority” serves a mental crutch for people seeking to escape the responsibility involved with being a thinking human being. It is an attempt to pass off the responsibility for decision making to someone else – those claiming to be “authority.” But the attempt to avoid responsibility by “just following orders” is silly, because it requires the person to choose to do what he was told. Even what appears as blind obedience is still the result of the individual choosing to be obedient.
The superstition of “authority” affects the perceptions and actions of different people in different ways, whether it be the “lawmakers” who imagine themselves to have the right to rule, the “law enforcers” who imagine themselves to have the right and obligation to enforce the commands of the “lawmakers,” the subjects who imagine themselves to have the moral duty to obey, or mere spectators looking on as natural observers. The effect of belief in “authority” on these various groups, when taken together, leads to a degree of oppression, injustice, theft and murder which simply could not and would not exist otherwise.
Indeed, the politicians’ level of psychological detachment from what they have personally and directly caused via their “laws” borders on insanity. They command armies of “tax collectors” to forcibly confiscate the wealth earned by hundreds of millions of people. They enact one intrusive “law” after another, using threats of violence to control every aspect of the lives of millions of people they have never met and know nothing about. And after they have been directly responsible for initiating violence, on a regular basis, against nearly everyone living within hundreds or thousands of miles of them, they are genuinely shocked and offended if one of their victims threatens to use violence against them. They consider it despicable for a mere peasant to even threaten to do what they, the politicians, do to millions of people every day. At the same time, they do not seem to notice the millions of people who are imprisoned, whose property is stolen, whose financial lives are ruined, whose freedom and dignity are assaulted, who are harassed, attacked, and sometimes murdered by “government” thugs, as a direct result of the very “laws” those politicians created.
Unfortunately, the horrific truth is that most people, as a result of their authoritarian indoctrination, do seem to be psychologically incapable of disobeying the commands of an imagined “authority.” Most people, given the choice between doing what they know is right and doing what they know is wrong when order to do so by a perceived “authority,” will do the latter.
The belief in “authority” allows basically good people to disassociate themselves from the evil acts they themselves commit, relieving them of any feeling of personal responsibility.
Whether it is a soldier or some low-level bureaucrat, the job of all law enforcers” is to forcibly inflict the will of the ruling class upon the general public. Nonetheless, most imagine that as they do so they are “serving the people.” Of course, the idea of “serving” someone by initiating violence against him is ridiculous. (Consider the oxymoron of the “Internal Revenue Service,” which does nothing but rob hundreds of millions of people of trillions of dollars every year.) Rather than ever considering the possibility that what they do on a regular basis – participating in a system of aggression and coercion – is immoral and uncivilized, most state mercenaries, from the paper pusher to the hired killer, simply say that they are “just doing their jobs,” imagine that that absolves them of all personal responsibility for their actions and the results of those actions.
This, above all else, has been the downfall of human society. Most of the evil and injustice committed by human beings is not the result of greed, or malice or hatred. It is the result of people doing what they are told, people following orders, people “doing their jobs.” In short, most of man’s inhumanity to man is a direct result of the belief in “authority.” The damage done by the merely obedient is just as real, and just as destructive, as if they had each done it from personal malice. Whether an old lady is robbed by an armed street thug or by a well dressed, well-educated “tax collector” makes no difference, morally or in practical terms. Whether someone’s personal choices are coercively controlled by a neighborhood thug or by “police” makes no difference, morally or in practical terms.
The only difference is that the authoritarian thug, as a result of the delusional belief in the mythical entity called “government,” refuses to accept personal responsibility for his own actions. His belief in the most dangerous superstition renders him unable to recognize evil as evil. In fact, he will feel proud of his loyal obedience to his masters as he spends day after day inflicting hardship and suffering upon innocent people, because he has been taught, for all his life, that when evil becomes “law,” it ceases to be evil and becomes good.
“Governments” produce no wealth; what they spend they must first take from someone else. Every “government,” including the most oppressive regimes in history, has been funded by the payment of “taxes” by loyal, productive subjects. Thanks to the belief in “authority,” the wealth created by billions of people will continue to be used, not to serve the vales and priorities of the people who worked to produce it, but to serve the agendas of those who, above all else, desire dominion over their fellow man.
Every invading army, every conquering empire, has been constructed out of wealth that was taken from productive people. The destroyers have always been funded by the creators; the thieves have always been funded by the producers; through the belief in “authority,” the agendas of the evil have always been funded by the efforts of the good. And this will continue, unless and until the most dangerous superstition is dismantled. When the producers no longer feel a moral obligation to fund the parasites and usurpers, the destroyers and controllers, tyranny will wither away, having been starved out of existence. Until then, good people will keep supplying the resources, which the bad people need in order to carry out their destructive themes.
There is a certain feeling of comfort and safety that one gets by conforming and obeying. Believing that things are in someone else’s hands, and having trust that someone else will make things right, is a way to avoid responsibility. Authoritarian indoctrination stresses the idea that, no matter what happens, if you simply do as you are told, and do what everyone else does, everything will be okay, and those in charge will reward and protect you.'